Although it took me a while to get into it, this offbeat and rarely seen Japanese film may be Josef von Sternberg's masterpiece. Sternberg himself, in his autobiography FUN IN A CHINESE LAUNDRY, described it as his greatest triumph. Sternberg is known for his remarkable visual flair and his celebrated associations with Marlene Dietrich. And yet, the more Sternberg I see, the more I get to appreciate his non-Dietrich films. I'm thinking of films like "The Docks of New York"(1928), "Underworld"(1927), "The Last Command"(1928), & "The Shanghai Gesture"(1941).
"The Saga of Anatahan" was his final film and a bizarrely distinctive one. The opening title tells us it is filmed in a studio specially constructed for the purpose in Kyoto. The film is narrated by Sternberg himself in English narration. It concerns a group of Japanese sailors abandoned in a secluded island called Anatahan during WWII. They discover the island has already been inhabited by a man and a woman. Sternberg's narration is powerful and fluid. The final moments where the woman (Queen Bee) reappears as the sailors return home at the airport have a haunting quality that will stick in your mind long after you watched the picture.
"The Saga of Anatahan" was his final film and a bizarrely distinctive one. The opening title tells us it is filmed in a studio specially constructed for the purpose in Kyoto. The film is narrated by Sternberg himself in English narration. It concerns a group of Japanese sailors abandoned in a secluded island called Anatahan during WWII. They discover the island has already been inhabited by a man and a woman. Sternberg's narration is powerful and fluid. The final moments where the woman (Queen Bee) reappears as the sailors return home at the airport have a haunting quality that will stick in your mind long after you watched the picture.